The
following text was presented at the First Panamerican Congress on the Family and
Education in Monterey, Mexico on May 23-26, 1994.

There is something radically wrong with the family and the relationship
between the sexes in the West as we rapidly approach the third millennium of the
Christian era. People and families are behaving very strangely, almost as if
they were characters out of Walker Percy's novel, <Love Among the Ruins>,
or Don Siegel's film, <Invasion of the Body Snatchers.> For example, could
one imagine that the European Parliament, representing the community of European
nations, would propose that homosexual relationships be given legal sanction
equivalent to marriage? Indeed it would be hard to find similar situations in
history, unless it be the pre-Christian paganism of the Roman Empire (cf. St.
Paul's Letter to the Romans 1:11-20) or the behavior of the barbarian hordes of
central Asia as they poured into a weak and decadent empire. However, their
behavior could be simply attributed to original sin and its results and to their
lack of Christianity. Today, in societies that are nominally Christian, we
witness the phenomenon of women who do not act like women, nor men like men, nor
families like families. Codes of moral behavior that have made the family the
central unit of society and have been the "guardrails" of civilization
for centuries have been discarded as antiquated. There are indices over the last
35 years which indicate disastrous societal changes in the United States.[1]
When one looks for the roots of these societal problems, one has to look
primarily at the state of the family but also at the system of education which
presumably helps to form students in their behavior.

This abandonment of moral norms at an early age is evident in the public
school systems of America. According to the California Department of Education,
the top ranking problems in schools in 1940 were, in order: talking out of turn,
chewing gum, making noise, running in halls, cutting in line, dress code
infractions, and littering. Already by 1980 moral conduct had dramatically
worsened in a way that would not have been imaginable in 1940. The 1980 list, in
order, included: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery,
and assault. A list in 1994 would almost certainly include guns in school,
sexual harassment, and a large increase in communicable venereal diseases.

What is at the heart of the continuing social decline? What has spawned such
high levels of contraception, divorce, child abuse, promiscuity, abortion,
homosexual behavior, substance abuse, violent crime, pornography and a general
degradation in what refers to the arts? The answers are too varied and
complicated to examine here in depth, but let me suggest a few obvious ones.
Christ and the teachings of his Church are increasingly ignored or attacked by
the majority of society. The secularist ideology of the Enlightenment, with its
concepts of the inevitability of progress, the goodness of human nature in the
primitive state, equality of condition as the goal of morality, etc., and its
philosophical offspring in the works of Freud, Marx, Darwin, and Mill, has been
influential in shaping the moral behavior of society. And, quite simply, men no
longer seek and obey the natural law. The natural law, among many other
postulates, leads the rational man to acknowledge the radical differences that
exist between men and women and to take those differences into account in the
functioning of society.

This paper highlights the value, indeed—insofar as it is possible—necessity
of single-sex education, from the age of puberty through late adolescence. This
would generally cover the ages from eleven or twelve through the early twenties.
In the United States it would apply, more or less, from grade seven through the
last year of undergraduate university studies. I believe that coeducation has
been and continues to be a serious mistake because it generally ignores the
radical differences between men and women in their biology, physiology,
psychology, and in their proper roles in contemporary society and the family. I
believe that these differences are good, that they are part of God's plan for
the human race, and that by tampering with them over the course of decades we
have brought the present state of society upon ourselves.

Naturally this means that I believe education has an end. That end is not
simply to produce knowledge-filled autonomous individuals who are then free to
seek and realize their hedonistic desires, nor to produce—a la John Dewey—citizens
for our liberal democracy, but rather to form men and women who will form
families, who see service to God, Church, society, and country as contributions
to the common good, and who value their roles as father or mother, husband or
wife above any professional goals bound up in security, enterprise, wealth,
pleasure or personal realization. For the most part, coeducation historically
has been brought about by the practical ideology of feminism which, in its most
radical form, simply denies the essential differences between men and women. It
essentially demands that they be treated the same in every way possible.

Lest this paper be totally one-sided, I should mention some of the arguments
in favor of coeducation cited by the Spanish professor Victor Garcia Hoz—himself
not a proponent of coeducation.[2] The first argument is economic. Coeducation
is less expensive, requiring fewer classes, buildings, teachers, etc. Second, he
cites the theory that coeducation provides a more harmonious relationship
between the sexes analogous to family life. It fosters understanding, knowledge,
and reciprocal interchange between the sexes. It better reflects the democratic
reality of the emancipation of women and their equal access to and capability
for the workplace. Third, it offers psychological advantages in that it
suppresses unhealthy curiosity and favors affective maturity. Finally, he points
out, coeducation fosters Christian moral behavior by preventing sexual deviancy
that can take place in single sex settings. We should keep these arguments in
mind as we progress through the paper.

The Catholic Church has consistently taught both the value and expressed a
preference for single-sex education, based above all on moral grounds. As we can
see from below, the Church's teaching has also been validated and indeed has
proven prophetic in many other elements of normal family life. Society ignores
the moral teachings of the Church at its peril. A non-Catholic points the way:

I believe in all the essentials of Catholic teaching on sex and family. I
arrived at these beliefs through laborious research in the secular literature on
the subject and through long experience and observations of families rich and
poor, all at a time when I regarded the Catholic Church as a retrograde body and
myself as some kind of agnostic. I now believe in the divine inspiration of
these Catholic insights and contend that a society can defy them only at the
cost of an increasing estrangement from God.

In purely secular terms the Catholic view of sex and family has been entirely
vindicated by recent events. Illegitimacy rates soaring in all the bastions of
the permissive welfare state fully support the Catholic attack on state
accommodations of teenage sex. Also vindicated, incidentally, is the traditional
Catholic support, now mostly abandoned, for separating the sexes in schools and
other activities as teenagers. With American women still earning less than 17
percent of family income in intact families, the Catholic insistence on the male
providers" role with children seems entirely realistic.[3]

With birth rates 50% below the replacement level in much of northern Europe,
the Catholic case against abortion seems conservative and mild. In just five
generations, the current fertility levels in such countries as Germany and
Sweden would bring them near extinction—a rate some 96% short of replacing the
current populations.

With the outbreak of AIDS and other medically baffling venereal diseases, the
Catholic critique of liberated lifestyles and affirmation of monogamous,
procreative sex seems a public health imperative. With recent census studies
indicating that single women who wait until their thirties have less than a 20%
chance of finding a husband, the Catholic encouragement of early marriage is
fully vindicated. With half of all marriages currently projected to end in
divorce, the idea of marriage as a breakable contract rather than a holy
sacrament has proven unworkable everywhere. Unless marriage is permanent and
sacred, it becomes an increasingly vulnerable and embattled institution that
collapses before every temptation and crisis.

Around the world, social decline and sexual chaos is the universal harvest of
reliance on secular, rationalist moral codes. In two centuries of effort,
secular humanists have yet to come up with a way of transmitting ethics to
children or persuading girls to say No. Without a religious foundation embracing
all the essentials of Catholic teaching, neither marriage nor civilization,
neither capitalism nor democracy can long survive in the modern world.[4]

An important question that should be raised is whether there should be a
co-ed system even at the university level, given the state of "arrested
adolescence" so common among affluent, upper middle class youth throughout
America. This arrested adolescence is due to many factors. Among them are lack
of religious formation, lack of strong family structures, a high level of
physical comfort and financial security which often produces softness and
laziness. Unlike their parents or grandparents, today's youth have not had to
live through serious economic depressions or world wars. With some notable
exceptions,[5] "college" has largely become at best a piece for
excellent preprofessional training and at worst an extended pre-paid, mortgaged
four year vacation from the reality of work, marriage, and family.

As we can see, this matter is somewhat complex, as it is intertwined with
many other issues including the purpose of education at both the university and
secondary levels, the relationship between the sexes, sex education (where the
Catholic view is being vindicated statistically)[6], school choice, home
schooling, and fundamental questions regarding the purpose of marriage and
family. The conclusion to be drawn by this brief study could be somewhat
wrenching given the supposed "progress" that has been made in
integrating women into the major universities in recent years. However, along
with the teaching of the Church, which is sparse and recent, studies in the last
ten years by social scientists and educators—many of whom theoretically and
ideologically have reason to opine otherwise—continue to point out the radical
differences between men and women from birth (and even conception).

These differences are naturally accentuated with the onset of puberty and
become so strong that coeducation at the secondary and university levels is
generally counterproductive to at least one of its stated purposes: the supposed
advancement of women to some state of "equality" or even
"sameness" with men. Although not conclusive, these recent studies
show convincingly that women generally flourish in single-sex settings where
they are not in competition with men. Naturally this calls into question gender
roles and the ends and purposes of marriage and professional life. It is a given
throughout this paper that the standards used to measure the
"progress" of women should not be those used for men.

In what follows I will strive to examine the question from several viewpoints
without, by any means, exhausting the topic. I will explain first the perennial
teaching and practice of the Church. This teaching, although consistent, is
remarkably sparse. One explanation for this fact is that, at least in the West,
women generally did not receive <formal> education in the arts and
sciences, nor did they study together with men until recent times (nonetheless,
this did not prevent Margaret More, the daughter of St. Thomas More, from
astonishing King Henry VIII with her learning!). I will also cite some of the
more recent magisterial texts of the Church, particularly of John Paul II, on
the role of women in society and the church. Finally, I will summarize the
conclusions of recent work on the differences between women and men
(particularly psychological ones) that indicate the value of a distinct approach
towards learning for each sex. Mention will also be made of some of the more
recent studies on the effects of coeducation in the U.S., as highlighted in
recent articles.

It should be noted at the outset, lest there be any mistake, that I am not
attempting to "turn back the clock" with regard to the education of
women. The opening of the world of the arts, and professions to women has been
and should be a positive one in many aspects, particularly given the unique
gifts and talents that women bring to these endeavors. To a great extent this
has occurred almost exclusively in the West. However, inasmuch as this
"opening" has encouraged women to place professional work (and
autonomous "self-realization") above marriage and family, it has had
disastrous consequences. It is difficult if not impossible for women to pursue
full-time professional work and effectively mother small children. Coeducation
is one of the main contributors to such a mentality. As John Paul II puts it:

<The work women do within the family units should be acknowledged and
deeply appreciated>. The "toil" of a woman who, having given birth
to a child, nourishes and cares for that child and devotes herself to its
upbringing, particularly in the early years, is so great as to be comparable to
any professional work... Motherhood, because of all the hard work it entails,
should be recognized, as giving the rights to financial benefits at least equal
to those of other kinds of work undertaken in order to support the family during
such a delicate phase of its life.[7]

I have spent a considerable amount of my priestly life working with college
students at elite universities on the East Coast of the U.S., the majority of
which—until the last thirty years—were single sex for men or
co-institutional, with separate divisions for men and women at the same
university. At first I was struck with what appeared to be the naturalness of
the young men and women co-habiting and studying together, almost, it appeared,
as if they were brothers and sisters. Only with the passage of time did I begin
to see the damage done to these students morally, psychologically, and even
physiologically (particularly to young women), not to mention the damage to
their education. If it is true, as the Church constantly affirms, that according
to the natural law the highest vocation of women (apart from a life of apostolic
celibacy) is to motherhood and family life, this educational environment often
has negative effects on such a goal. Promiscuity, loss of virginity, abortions,
pregnancies out of wedlock, attempted suicides, psychosomatic diseases such as
bulimia and anorexia, the beginnings of alcoholism[8], along with relatively few
positive female role models -all combined to convince me that the current system
was harmful to all but the exceptionally strong and well-formed girl. On a more
natural plane, there has been an almost total disappearance of the concepts of
courtesy, dating, courtship, and healthy romance which flourish where marriage
and family are valued. The slovenliness of dress and manners is still another
symptom of the failure of the current system.

At the same time, it was taboo, almost unthinkable, to even <suggest> a
possible change, or reevaluation of the "new" system or to propose a
return to single sex education as formerly practiced. The fact that for
thousands of years people married, begat children, worked and at least in the
West even "progressed" in the material and scientific sense without
coeducation could not be taken into account. The fairly rapid growth of
fraternities and sororities, virtually the only places where men and women can
be alone with members of the same sex, has been ignored. While there are
celebrations commemorating the beginnings of coeducation in formerly single-sex
schools—complete with paroxysms of self-congratulation—there is nary a
dissenting voice heard or allowed.

Ironically, at a moment when all the evidence points to their great value,
Catholic girl's schools continue to decline in the U.S. due to lack of vocations
for the religious congregations that formerly staffed them and to subsequent
financial problems. At the same time formerly all-male schools are opening their
doors to women at the university and high school levels. In some cases these
institutions have decided to end centuries of dedication to all-male education.
Thus, they fall into a compromise with modernity in order to survive the lack
both of male students and male religious staff vocations.

The injustice done to these students is immense. The great majority of them
cannot articulate why they are studying, other than vague references to career
or "service to humanity." All of this in an atmosphere where power,
physical attractiveness, sexual conquests, leisure time, economic security and
the amassing of wealth are the underlying, if unarticulated, goals of everyday
life. A relatively few young men and women are capable, after some reflection,
of understanding that they are living in a polluted atmosphere, and that
holiness, commitment, marriage and family, truth, character and virtue should be
the ends of an integral education. (I have dealt with some of these matters in
other articles. See particularly my views on campus ministry and Catholic
colleges.[9]) Suffice it to say that although my experience is solely with
secular universities, I have no reason to believe (with a few exceptions) that
the situation is substantially different in Catholic universities. Indeed, I
believe that one could show that the introduction of coeducation in these
institutions had a strong negative effect on the traditional liberal arts
emphasis of those schools. They thereby lost all or part of the intellectual
strength and Catholic identity so strongly praised by such intellectual giants
of this century as Jacques Maritain and Christopher Dawson.

As we mentioned earlier there is relatively little in the teaching authority
of the Church on coeducation, since the phenomenon is still relatively new (and
may be a passing fancy at least <vis a vis> a historical institution like
the Church). At the same time, after its initial strong warnings, the Church,
though not retracting its teachings, has scarcely addressed the question. This
may be out of respect for the future prudential judgment of those who have to
tackle the question of education, religious or otherwise, under difficult social
conditions. It may also be simply awaiting the results over time of this social
experiment in order to see if its judgment should be modified.

Pope Pius XI in 1929 wrote an encyclical entitled "Christian Education
of Youth" where he addressed the topic of coeducation in several paragraphs
which I will reproduce below. It is placed between two other sections, one on
"sex instruction" and the other on the "Christian family."
One can see that coeducation must have already been making inroads in the
Catholic schools, as well as in general society, for the matter to be of
sufficient import to be addressed:

False also and harmful to Christian education is the so-called method
"co-education." This too, by many of its supporters is founded upon
naturalism and the denial of original sin; but by all, upon a deplorable
confusion of ideas that mistakes a leveling promiscuity and equality, for the
legitimate association of the sexes. The Creator has ordained and disposed
perfect union of the sexes only in matrimony, and, with varying degrees of
contact, in the family and in society. Besides there is not in nature itself,
which fashions the two quite different in organism, in temperament, in
abilities, anything to suggest that there can be or ought to be promiscuity, and
much less equality in the training of the two sexes. These, in keeping with the
wonderful designs of the Creator, are destined to complement each other in the
family and in society, precisely because of the differences, which therefore
ought to be maintained and encouraged during their years of formation with the
necessary distinction and corresponding separation, according to age and
circumstances. These principles, with due regard to time and place, must in
accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools particularly in
the most delicate and decisive period of formation, that, namely, of
adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment, special care must be had
of Christian modesty in young women and girls, which is so gravely impaired by
any kind of exhibition in public.

Recalling the terrible words of the Divine Master: "Woe to the world
because of scandals! (Matt 18:7)" We must earnestly appeal to your
solicitude and your watchfulness, Venerable Brethren, against these pernicious
errors, which, to the immense harm of youth, are spreading far and wide among
the Christian people.

In order to obtain perfect education, it is of the utmost importance to see
that all those conditions which surround the child during the period of his
formation, in other words that the combination of circumstances which we call
environment, correspond exactly to the end proposed.[10]

Pius XI underlines the "legitimate" association and complementarily
of the sexes and "their differences which ought to be maintained and
encouraged... particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of
formation, <adolescence.>" The language that he employs is forceful:
"false" and "harmful," which does not leave much room for
interpretation. One gets a strong notion that the Holy Father considers this an
important pastoral concern, given the strength and directness of his words. He
speaks of "confusion of ideas," which seems to sum up admirably much
of the practice of coeducation. It is interesting to note that the only
quotation cited is from Scripture, "Woe to the world because of
scandals," particularly given the current environment in Church and
society.

In 1957 the Holy See gave a more complete description of its viewpoint on
coeducation in an Instruction from the Congregation for Religious.[11] It
reaffirmed that coeducation could not be approved in a general way. It also
stated that the moral dangers of coeducation, particularly during puberty, are
more serious than any other possible advantages, and that coeducation cannot
simply be looked upon as a continuation of family life. However, it did concede
that the good of Catholic education is of prime importance, thus permitting
coeducation in a Catholic school if necessary. Evidently it is preferable to
receive the moral and religious training in a Catholic school even if the
educational setting is not ideal. It also recommended, under such circumstances,
a form of instruction known as co-institutional, whereby boys and girls could be
instructed separately using the same facilities.

We can now move on to the Second Vatican Council, which tells us that:

All men of whatever race, condition, or age, in virtue of the dignity as
human persons, have an inalienable right to education. This education should be
suitable to the particular destiny of individuals, adapted to their ability,
<sex> (my emphasis)... True education is directed towards the formation of
the human person in view of his final end and the good of that society to which
he belongs and in the duties of which he will, as an adult, have a share.

Due weight being given to the <advances in psychological, pedagogical, and
intellectual sciences> (my emphasis), children and young people should be
helped to develop harmoniously their physical, moral and intellectual qualities.
They should be trained to acquire gradually a more perfect sense of
responsibility in the proper development of the own lives by constant effort and
in the pursuit of liberty, overcoming obstacles with unwavering courage and
perseverance. As they grow older they should receive a positive and prudent
education in matters relating to sex.[12]

The Council places a heavy emphasis on the "ends" of education,
understood both as spiritual ends and the temporal goods of the society and
family. A theme which could be understood as central to all Council teaching is
mentioned here: the dignity of the human person. This end is not just
supernatural, but also prepares people for their duties as regards the good of
society. One of the constant themes of this forward looking Council is that
technological "advances" or—progress in the sciences—is not exempt
from this notion of human dignity. Precisely one of the points of this paper is
to show that the sciences almost unanimously point to the advantages of single
sex education. The Council certainly reaffirms the content of Pius XI's
encyclical and further develops it, quoting it extensively (although it makes no
direct mention of the subject of coeducation).

Pope John Paul II has touched on these themes, albeit indirectly, in two of
his encyclicals, <Familiaris Consortio> and <Mulieris Dignitatem>,
dealing, respectively, with the role of the family and women in modern day
society, themes which obviously are germane to our topic. Mention should be made
here of various lines from the former:

There is no doubt that equal dignity and responsibility of men and women
fully justifies women's access to public functions. On the other hand, the true
advancement of women requires that clear recognition be given to the value of
their maternal and family role... Society should be structured in such a way
that wives and mothers aren't <in practice compelled> to work outside the
home... Furthermore the mentality which honors women more for their work outside
the home than for their work within the family must be overcome . . . But
clearly all of this does not mean for women a renunciation of their femininity
or an imitation of the male role, but the fullness of true feminine
humanity.[13]

Amazingly enough, in the United States young women are opting out of the job
market and staying home, reversing a decades-long trend.[14] The explanation
given by the author is an economic one. "[D]ue to the plunge in interest
rates and consequently home mortgage rates it is now possible for a woman to
both stay at home and have a home. Moreover, the average working woman's real
wages have remained so low that it doesn't seem probable that she would want to
work. After paying for child care—not to mention lunches, bus tokens, and a
working wardrobe—she may well find herself laboring for free."[15]
Another complementary explanation may be that nature is reasserting itself and
that young women are not willing to put up with handling two full time tasks
after having seen the experience of their mothers and older sisters.

These magisterial teachings raise the question as to whether there should not
be on both secondary and university levels an educational option for women that
is primarily dedicated to their formation as future wives and mothers. It would
seem to make sense that a majority of women could receive a basic liberal arts
education in order to help them to pass on to their children the Western
patrimony in history, art, music, literature, etc. Additionally, they would have
the opportunity to complement their college studies with what were previously
known (and very popular as) home economics or domestic sciences, to better
prepare them for their natural and normal function as mothers and wives. Of
course, this would not prevent young women who are intent on pursuing a
professional career outside the home from following their normal course of
studies in the university.

In the latter encyclical, written on the occasion of the Marian year of 1987,
John Paul II makes reference in his own particular theological language to the
damage done by original sin to the male-female relationship, particularly the
danger of male domination:

The revealed truth concerning the creation of the human being as male and
female constitutes the principal argument against all the objectively injurious
and unjust situations which contain and express the inheritance of sin which all
human beings bear within themselves.... In our times the question of
"women's rights" has taken on new significance in the broad context of
the rights of the human person... In the name of liberation from male
"domination" women must not appropriate to themselves male
characteristics contrary to their own feminine "originality." There is
a well founded fear that if they take this path, women will not reach
"fulfillment" but instead will <deform and lose what constitutes
their essential richness....> The personal resources of femininity are
certainly no less than the resources of masculinity: they are merely different.
Hence, a woman, as well as a man, must understand her "fulfillment" as
a person, the dignity and vocation, on the basis of these resources, according
to the richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and
which she inherits as an expression of the "image and likeness of God"
that is specifically hers.[16]

The Holy Father is here emphasizing that a person's fulfillment (male or
female) is based, above all, in the recognition of their nature as God created
them and in the development of their character and personality through the use
of the choices they make throughout their life. The attempted escape from one's
own metaphysical identity (physically, psychologically, spiritually, etc.)
inevitably places tensions and strains within the person which impact on both
family and society. John Paul II has repeated many times that what a person
"is" has priority over what he "does" or "has."

In the <Catechism of the Catholic Church>,[17] a definitive and recent
Magisterial text, the Church, speaking of men and women underlines "the
equality and differences willed by God" (Pts. 369-373) and the fact that
"men and women are made for one another" and "they are at the
same time equal inasmuch as they are persons, and complementary inasmuch as they
are masculine and feminine." The text also points out the importance of the
virtues of modesty and chastity, obviously applicable to both men and women
given the current permissiveness of customs. "Chastity represents a task
eminently personal; and implies a cultural effort since the development of the
human person and the growth of society itself are mutually conditioned (GS 25,
1). Chastity supposes the respect of the rights of the person, in particular, to
receive information and <education> (my emphasis) that respects the moral
and spiritual dimensions of human life (pt. 2344)."

Given the current state of almost unprecedented permissiveness of morals
among young people who are heavily and unduly influenced by the mass media, I
have serious doubts that chastity can be promoted and lived in a coeducational
setting without extraordinary efforts on the parts of the students, and almost
authoritarian vigilance on the part of teachers and parents. Mention should be
made here of current customs prevalent in the majority of universities where
students—public, private and Catholic-board in <mixed dormitories> where
chastity and modesty are made difficult to live and where the
"permissiveness of customs" is a sad and daily reality. Can one
imagine or find any other time or place in history where young men and women
between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two have been wantonly and
indiscriminately thrown together in cramped living quarters essentially without
any adult supervision?

A final word will be added here particularly given that we are celebrating
the "Year of the Family" as proclaimed both by the United Nations and
the Holy See. In pts. 2221-2231 of the <Catechism>, the Church restates
the key and primary role of parents in the education of their children.
"Parents are the first ones responsible for the education of their
children" (pt. 2223). In regard to schools it says that, "The parents
have the right to select for their children a school that corresponds to their
own convictions. This right is fundamental. Inasmuch as possible, parents have
the duty of selecting schools that best help them in their educative task"
(2229). Ideally, therefore, in a Christian society, the state (or government)
would assure that single-sex education would be available during the formative
years for all desiring it, either provided by the state or as an option in state
financed private education.

Now I would like to pass on to a discussion of the topic of coeducation from
a different magisterial text, i.e., the difference and complementarily of the
sexes, and consequently their different ends. Much of this is simply a
reflection of common sense, or what is known as the natural law, or those
principles which can be known by right reason.

A part of the problem consists, I believe, in a society which has lost any
sense of tradition and history and at the same time lacks a positive vision for
the future. In the current hedonistic environment, pleasure and autonomous
self-realization are the standard for living. As Russell Kirk pointed out in his
classic <The Conservative Mind>, "(Our) people have come to look upon
society, vaguely, as a homogeneous mass of identical individuals, with
indistinguishable abilities and needs, whose happiness may be secured from
direction by above, through legislation or some matter of public
instruction." When men and women live in an atmosphere where power, wealth,
achievement, celebrity and pleasure are treasured above all else, the importance
and goodness of forming a family, educating children in truth and tradition,
become not only outmoded, but are made almost impossible save by heroic effort.
Education simply becomes a means to an economic and utilitarian end, and the
value of specifically oriented male or female formation is derided and finally
eliminated.

The author Anne Husted Burleigh has some interesting points to make in this
regard speaking of the education of women:

Young women, on the other hand, no longer receive in their education any
pattern of what they might be expected to do in life. When they march off the
graduation platform, their lives yawn toward a frightening open end. By this
time they have come through sixteen years of schooling, exposed to a drum beat
of ideology that tells them they must imitate men in seeking careers in the
world, that denies that they have any distinct feminine calling of their own,
that preaches that their potential vocation as wives and mothers is merely an
alternative lifestyle which they may choose one day, but if they do, that
vocation is only one among many careers, no higher than any other and certainly
most desirable when pursued in combination with a "real" career.

Little wonder that young women dare not admit openly that they may think
themselves called primarily to be wives and mothers. When asked what they hope
to do in life, most feel compelled to declare some specific career goal. Only in
sheepish embarrassment do they sometimes add the aside that they also look
forward to getting married someday. And even then they will likely not allow
themselves the further admission that they hope also to have a baby—and maybe
even more than one baby. Those natural feminine hopes of being a wife and a
mother are not permitted to surface in the modern technical world that faces
today's young women. Any such inclination must remain inside the secret heart of
girls.[18]

In today's secondary education, and to a much greater extent in the
university, the ideology of feminism is so strongly rooted that it is rare and
courageous for young women even to admit the possibility of marriage and
children as a good in itself (even though the great majority will surely marry
and have children). It is even rarer to view this as the superior purpose of
their lives as women, to which their education should be oriented. Consequently,
they enter marriage often sexually experienced but not ready, or necessarily
willing, to fulfill their maternal role. Indeed, almost immediately conflicts
arise as to their role in marriage and family as well as in society, often
leading to enormous marital and familial problems and, not infrequently, to
divorce.

Of all tasks that present themselves to a young woman the most important is
surely the care and formation of souls When a young mother holds in her arms her
new baby, she holds a tiny barbarian with the potential for becoming a saint.
The vocation of this young mother is to impart to her child the intellectual and
spiritual treasures of her civilization. Her aim is to help her child toward
that integration of soul, that is, toward that state in which his mind, properly
instructed, truly governs the other levels of his being, in which he is able to
subject his entire self to the governance of right reason. What the young mother
must do is to teach her child how to use his freedom in the only way he can
remain free—that is, by doing right. To rear a free man, this young woman must
herself understand what freedom is. Thus she herself requires an education
befitting a free person, an education that explains to her why she is free at
all. Unfortunately the education she most often receives these days is more
proper to the citizen of a totalitarian regime, in which education merely aims
at turning out technicians who are useful to the state.[19]

G. K. Chesterton, the famous Catholic apologist of the earlier part of this
century, deplores the attack against common sense and nature that he sees not
only in coeducation but in the lack of sense of purpose or finality in the
single sex female education of his time.

But there are no new ideas about female education. There is not, there has
never been, even the vestige of a new idea. it All the educational reformers did
was ask what was being done to boys and then go and do it to girls . . .What
they call new ideas are very old ideas in the wrong place... It will then be
answered, not without a sneer, "And what would you prefer? Would you go
back to the elegant early: Victorian female, with ringlets and smelling bottle,
doing a little in water colors, dabbling a little in Italian, playing a little
on the harp, writing in vulgar albums and painting on senseless screens? Do you
prefer that?" To which I answer, "Emphatically, yes." I solidly
prefer it to the new female education, for this reason, that I can see in it an
intellectual design, while there is none in the other.[20]

Of course, today there appears to be increasingly less intellectual design as
to the purpose of education and more ideological manipulation. This is often
unnoticed by the parents on whose shoulders rest the primary obligation of
educating their offspring.

Chesterton here also introduces a query regarding the suitability of rugged
sports for women, an almost sacrosanct topic in the U.S. "Even a savage
could see that bodily things, at least, which are good for a man are very likely
to be bad for a woman. Yet there is no boy's game, however brutal, which these
mild lunatics have not promoted among girls."[21] I would like to see a
study done on the incidents of serious injuries and physical problems that arise
from women's sports and their effects on future reproductive capacity. Women's
sports, on some campuses, have become havens for what is perhaps unhealthy
segregation from men. This could be true for a variety of reasons: for many
women, female sports are the only refuge on campus away from predator males;
there is an obvious lack of modesty and emphasis put on physicality in this
atmosphere; the playing field is a place where women are encouraged to act like
males. Sports for women, as well as men, by their nature are healthy. I am
simply referring to an overemphasis on masculine traits in sports in the case of
women. In any case, the question should be further researched.

Chesterton states roundly that the "world must keep one great amateur,
lest we all become artists and perish. Somebody must renounce all specialist
conquests that she may conquer all the conquerors. That she may be a queen of
life, she must not be a private soldier in it."[22] He places motherhood on
a pedestal at the very heart of the family and society. For him female education
must be aimed, above all, at forming "the one great amateur at the center
of the world." Today we would employ the word "generalist" in
place of "amateur." Women as mothers have to employ a variety of
talents, knowledge, and experience to the rearing of children. This need, of
course, is multiplied by the number of children with their different
personalities and needs.

Investigations by scholars over the last several decades have only reinforced
what common sense observation tells us, i.e., there are substantial
<natural> differences between men and women. It is not by any means simply
a question of differences in external physiology or those induced solely by
environmental upbringing and attitudes. As George Gilder put it:

The problem is the sociological view: the belief in a society of monads that
are to be treated as human beings. But I have never met a human being, and I
hope I never do. In this world, there are only men and women; and they are very
different from one another. <Vive la difference...> Some of the reasons
are biological [speaking of the different rates of success between men and women
in the business world]. The evidence is overwhelming that men and women are
genetically dissimilar in ways well beyond the obvious physical differences.
Feminist psychologists Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin sum it up in <The
Psychology of Sex Differences>: 1) Males are more aggressive than females in
all human societies for which evidence is available. 2) The sex differences are
found early in life, at a time when there is no evidence that differential
socialization pressures have been brought to bear by adults to "shape"
aggression differently in the two sexes. 3) Similar sex differences are found in
man and sub-human primates. 4) Aggression is related to levels of sex hormones,
and can be changed by experimental administrations of these hormones.[23]

As another author puts it: "Let us look at nature. What do we see
between boys and girls aside from anatomical differences? There are too many
features to list here... A few of the masculine: objective, analytic,
task-oriented, providing, hard, brutal, head-dominating, spiritually active and
future oriented; as respectively described for the feminine: intuitive, wise,
quality-of-life oriented, nurturing, soft and delicate, sweet, heart dominating,
spiritually contemplative, and present oriented."[24] These qualities,
although not all inclusive or adequately descriptive, nevertheless are apparent
in children from an early age regardless of race, culture, or environment.
Blessed Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, tells us that "women
are called to bring to the family, to society, and to the Church,
characteristics which are their own and which alone they can give: their gentle
warmth and untiring generosity, their love for detail, their quick-wittedness
and intuition, their simple and deep piety, their constancy...."[25]

As the noted psychologist Rudolph Allers put it:

Character training is harder in the case of girls with boys, although the
contrary belief is generally held, for, as things are today, the girl must be
prepared for two eventualities—for motherhood, with all that it involves, and
for the life of an independent wage earner. This alone is a good reason against
the parallel education of boys and girls; and the careful investigations of K.
Buhler show that the time-factor in the development of the two sexes is so
different that coeducation is impracticable except in the period before school
and the early school years. Even if considerations of possible moral risk be
ignored the idea of complete coeducation throughout the whole period of youth is
shown to be completely mistaken.[26]

I should point out here, lest there be any confusion, that the socialization
of the sexes is fundamentally important given both their ends and their natural
and necessary complementarily. Socialization can and should be realized in
various ways whether it be in home, in the community, or in the workplace as, of
course, has been the case throughout history. After all, all men have had
biological mothers (even in this high-tech age) and the great majority have
spent their formative years living with them and in many cases with sisters at
home. However, coeducation during the formative years of development through
adolescence is normally a distraction, sometimes a temptation, and usually
counterproductive to its proposed purposes.

Now we will pass on to the final section of this paper, which deals with some
of the actual studies done on the effects of coeducation on the secondary level
and its deleterious consequences, particularly on high school age women. There
is also increasing evidence to show that single-sex education is of significant
benefit to young men.[27] In fact there have been efforts on the part of
authorities in the "inner cities" of America to promote such programs
in the public schools as a means of building character and enforcing discipline.
Due to space constraints this paper deals primarily with the advantages and
disadvantages of coeducation with regard to females, given their central role in
the family and society. Hopefully, I can deal with these matters in regard to
males at another time. There are ample sources available for such a study.

Interestingly enough, the studies cited below are generally done by people
who are ideologically in agreement with a certain style of feminism who
certainly do not posit marriage and motherhood as primordial ends for women.
They are all in favor of women competing with men in the workplace, even in
combat positions in the Armed Forces, yet they seem to want to postpone the
competition until after high school, or even college. One wonders why they do
not question the legitimacy of competition with men in the workplace as well.

Much of the problems with coeducational schools vis a vis education is simply
a question of male dominance that appears to be inevitable and constant
according to all the studies. As Deborah Tannen put it in her best seller of
some years ago:

In analyzing tape recordings of private conversations among teenagers,
Deborah Lange found a similar pattern. when the girls were alone, they talked
about problems in their relationship with friends; when boys were alone, they
talked about activities and plans, and made comments about friends. When boys
and girls were together they talked about activities and plans, and made
comments about friends. In other words, when boys and girls talked together, the
talked more or less the way boys talked when there were no girls present. But
when girls got together with no boys present, they talked very differently.

All these (and many other) studies show that male-female conversations are
more like men's conversation than they are like women's. So when women and men
talk to each other, both make adjustments, but the women make more. Women are at
a disadvantage in mixed-sex groups, because they have had less practice in
conducting conversation the way it is being conducted in these groups.

<This may help to explain why girls do better at single-sex schools,
whereas boys do about the same whether they go to boys' schools or coeducational
ones> (my emphasis).[28]

Some of the study's results are measured by levels of individual self-esteem
which, in secular terms, often appears to be the absolute standard for
happiness.

In the fall of 1990, the American Association of University Women fielded an
important study entitled "Short-changing Girls, Shortchanging Women."
Below are listed four of the key findings, with commentary, by the Emma Willard
School, a prestigious East Coast all girl's prep school:

1. A self-esteem "gender gap" increases as our children grow up. As
children grow older from elementary school on up they tend to think less and
less well of themselves.

2. Declining self-esteem, a governor on dreams and actions, affects girls
much more drastically than boys. Most boys refer to their talents as what they
like the most about themselves. Girls, unfortunately, are twice as likely as to
mention their physical appearance as the thing they like the most. Naturally the
question of physical appearance and its importance is highly exacerbated in a
coeducational setting.

3. Family and schools, not peers, have the greatest impact on adolescent
self-esteem and aspirations. Across co-ed grade levels boys get four more times
the attention from teachers than do girls. Teachers engage boys more in dialogue
and expect boys to grasp and defend more complex ideas. Another study points out
that in a coeducational setting even the brightest women often remain silent.
Other more subtle forms of discrimination exist in co-ed classes, including
calling on males by name more often than women, addressing the class as if no
women were present, probing male responses more, addressing male questions at
greater length, and giving male students credit and praise for their observation
in subsequent discussion.

4. Math and science have the strongest impact on self-esteem for young women.
As girls "learn" they are not good in math and science, their sense of
self-worth and their career aspirations plummet. Boys who do not excel at math
or science dismiss their poor grades because the subjects are not useful or
interesting. Girls, on the other hand, interpret their failure in math and
science as personal failures.

The conclusion of the Willard School summary is that, "Research
indicates that girls are generally at a distinct disadvantage in a co-ed
environment. Single-sex education, on the other hand, provides significant
advantages for girls on every front."[29]

These conclusions are beginning to be widely recognized, as witnessed by
recent articles in the opinion setting newspapers <The New York Times> and
the <Wall Street Journal.> The <Times> headlines an article in this
way: "All-girl classes to help girls keep up with boys,"[30] and the
<Journal> informs us that even "Coed Schools are studying all-girl
classes."[31] So it happens that coed high schools, both public and
private, are separating boys and girls, at least in the math and science classes
where girls are at a distinct disadvantage.[32] Indeed, the natural reaction
that one would expect to find in most societies is taking place in the U.S.,
where the <Times> tells us that, "Women's Colleges find a new
popularity."[33] It appears that in the last eight years enrollment in
women colleges in the U.S. has risen almost 25%. According to the officials of
the colleges, their institutions produce a larger proportions of Ph.D.'s and
more leaders in government and business, and therefore are attracting more
women. What, of course, they don't infer is that women may simply feel more
comfortable being educated with their peers of the same sex.

With this paper, I hope to have at least "raised the consciousness"
of the reader regarding the various problems connected with coeducation and the
virtues of single sex education in our present day society. Coeducation is
largely taken by the immense majority of the populace as normal, natural and
necessary, although increasingly almost all the evidence is to the contrary. I
would take as my own the conclusions of Stephen Clark regarding the effects of
the weakening of men's and women's distinctive roles and apply them to the
effects of coeducation[34]:

1. Future family life is weakened. Young men and women become confused as to
the ultimate meaning of their sexuality.

2. Sexual relationships become troubled. We only need look at the statistics
to be satisfied on that score.

3. Women often lose a sense of value. Girls lose a sense of the greatness of
who they are, as daughters of God, future wives, and mothers, and not as
instruments of sexual satisfaction for men with whom they are called to compete
on a supposedly level playing field in the professional world.

4. Manly and womanly roles are neglected.

5. Men and women develop psychological instabilities. One only needs to open
up the telephone pages of any municipality to see the scores of psychiatrists,
psychologists, and marriage counselors who have a thriving business based on
these instabilities. One could also take a glance at the best-sellers lists of
books over the last decades to see how many are catering to the emotionally and
psychologically wounded of our society.

When looking at the societal wreckage of the loss of distinction between the
roles of the sexes, I am reminded of the saying that "God always forgives,
man sometimes forgives, and nature never forgives." Nature's lack of
forgiveness is reflected in the continuing and increasing discord in marriage
and family in our society. We can only expect a continuation of this chaos
unless there is change.

I am not certain to what extent the current system of education for men and
women is a cause or a symptom, but in any case it should continue to be examined
courageously and objectively. It is clear to me that coeducation from the onset
of puberty (which occurs increasingly early in the U.S. due to nutritional
factors) through early adulthood (increasingly later due to what I referred to
earlier as "arrested adolescence" in the U.S.) is highly problematic.
This judgment conforms with the constant teaching of the Church. The sexes,
therefore, should be educated separately from at least the age of 12 through
high school, and serious thought should be given to single-sex education in the
university. It may happen that in centuries to come coeducation will be seen as
an aberrant social experiment in the twentieth century that was largely
abandoned due to its documented negative effects on family, culture, and
society.

I would largely agree with the analysis of Dr. Allers:

Nobody would be prepared to dispute the fact that present social conditions
are very far from satisfactory; nobody can be blind to the fact that the
position of women is, generally speaking, not a good one, although happily there
are a large number of women whose lot is pleasant, and whose attitude towards
life is right. Although the number of male neurotics is by no means small, women
still form the main body of those who suffer in this way, which shows that, on
the whole, women are in a worse state of conflict than men—not that it proves
anything about a special predisposition in the case of woman. It is a matter of
urgent necessity for the maintenance of individual and communal normality and a
desirable level of morals and religion that a serious start should be made to
analyze the problems of which we have just hinted here. At this point we
immediately find ourselves faced with insuperable obstacles, as in the case of
the education of children and adults. If our efforts fail, it is only in the
smallest degree due to the operation of natural limitations; nor is it due to
the fact that we were brought up against people who are stubborn and whose
disposition, constitution—call it what you will—renders a change of mind
impossible. Such a failure is due to the obstacles imposed by existing social,
economic, and worldwide political conditions, and ultimately to the fact that
the minds of the great mass of mankind are so lacking in a true communal
consciousness that the real sense of humanity has to a large extent been lost.
It is unnecessary to refer to the way in which man may lose the feeling for
human things to the same degree he has alienated himself from things divine...
The problems—nowadays acute of women's education, women's occupation, the
position of women in the family and communal life, and, bound up with these, the
future of the children, the race, and the Church, can only be solved by
<intensive and all-embracing reforms> (my emphasis). Neither by a trivial
attempt to creep back to past conditions always illusory not by grumbling and
effecting improvements first in one direction and then another, but only by a
genuine and deep change of heart (<metanoia>) affecting our whole
civilization can there be any improvement. Where is he who shall summon us to
prepare the way of the Lord? We hear many who cry out in the wilderness; but
there is no voice possessed of the power and urgency of John the Baptist. It is
high time for someone to seek to awaken and stir up mankind. Change your
hearts![35]

Most probably it will simply be ordinary parents in Catholic families who
will reassert their primary rights to educate their children in a way that is
consonant with human nature, divine revelation and the teachings of the Church,
thus reforming the current system. As Pope John Paul II has recently put in a
letter written especially to celebrate this international year of the family:
"Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children,
and they possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators
because they are parents."... The Church's constant and trusting prayer
during the Year of the Family is <for the education of man>, so that
families will persevere in their task of education with courage, trust, and
hope, in spite of difficulties occasionally so difficult as to appear
insuperable."[36] To build the "civilization of love" for the
next millennium demands no less.